TV journalist Shifa Gardi killed in Mosul roadside bomb-explosion

Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters watching smoke billowing as they deploy in the area in Dohuk, north of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq, October 20, 2016. Rudaw Media Network says its journalist Shifa Gardi was killed in a bomb explosion in Mosul Saturday. File Photo by Shvan Harki/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Rudaw Media Network says one of its star war correspondents was killed and her cameraman injured this weekend in a roadside bomb-explosion in Mosul.

The team had been covering "developments of the renewed offensive to liberate the right bank of the last, major, urban stronghold still held by ISIS in Iraq," the network said in a statement, remembering
Shifa Gardi as one of its "most daring journalists."

"She was known as a renowned skilled journalist in Kurdish news media, and brought outstanding coverage to Rudaw TV right from the beginning of its establishment," her employers continued. "In the name of Rudaw Media Network, we convey our most sincere and most profound condolences to the family and friends of Ms. Gardi and to our team worldwide, and we wish a speedy recovery to the wounded Rudaw journalist Yunis Mustafa."

NBC News cited the Committee to Protect Journalists as saying this is the first, recorded killing of a journalist in Iraq this year. At least six reportedly died covering conflict in the country in 2016.